The Black Market
Posted inConnectivity

How Much Is A 3G Enabled Econet Line Worth On The Black Market? $150!

Ok, it’s official (well, in the unofficial sense), if you have US $150 to burn, you can make a few calls to guys who know guys, who know guys, who know guys that are selling Internet-ready Econet mobile lines and one will be delivered to your doorstep within the hour. The official price of an Econet line is US $5 and internet subscriptions cost a flat $25 a month. We made a few calls ourselves and got offers ranging from $130 to $150. We tried to negotiate the price down with one guy and got the much expected “either you pay $150 or you don’t want the line, simple!” So business sure is brisk for these dealers from the dark side.
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Cheap International Calls
Posted inConnectivity

Telecel Slashes International Call Rates To As Low As A Local Call

Starting today, if you have a Telecel mobile line and need to call someone in the US, the UK, Australia, the Emirates, China or India (Update: Canada too), you will be charged local call rates. Calls to these destinations can now be made for as little as 25 US cents. Note though that this doesn’t apply to calls to Vodafone numbers in the UK. This compares quite favorably to making international calls on other Zim mobile networks (Econet and NetOne) which costs anything between US $0.30 and US$8,70 depending on the international grouping of the destination.
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Nelson Chamisa
Posted inConnectivity

The Zim ICT Minister on AU theme: Information and Communication Technologies in Africa: Prospects and Challenges for Development

The Computer Society of Zimbabwe organized a presentation by the Zimbabwe Minister of ICT, Nelson Chamisa yesterday evening. The presentation was on the just ended African Union 14th Ordinary Summit whose theme was “Information and Communication Technologies in Africa: Prospects and Challenges for Development” He touched on using Information and Communication Technologies as instruments for achieving peace and enhancing development and disaster response. Specifically, he talked about the following issues:
ZOL VSAT
Posted inBroadband

Zimbabwe Online Starts Offering VSAT Internet Services

Starting this month, Zimbabwe’s leading Internet Service Provider, Zimbabwe Online (ZOL) will be offering VSAT Internet services. VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) is an Internet solution capable of delivering high speed Internet to any location through satellite connectivity effectively, allowing very remote areas without telecommunication infrastructure to connect seamlessly to the internet. Getting your own ZOL VSAT installed will cost US $1,800 (setup fees) and a minimum monthly subscription of US $180.
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Nimubzz Skype Call
Posted inBroadband

Subscribers Using Econet Data Services To Make Free Calls And SMSes

If you have an Econet line activated for Internet, there might be some ways to save a few extra dollars on calls and SMSes. There are some nifty tools used world over to make “free” calls and SMSes especially where the mobile network operator is kind enough to offer unlimited internet traffic for a flat monthly subscription. What most subscribers are using for calls at the moment is Fring and Nimbuzz (our favourite). The call is made using the Skype platform so both the caller and recipient need to have Skype accounts. For SMS there’s mjoy, a mobile web application to send texts for free to almost anywhere in the world.
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Telecel Under Construction
Posted inConnectivity

Telecel Website Taken Offline

The website of the second largest mobile operator, Telecel was taken down this morning. It's not clear why. We suspect one of two things; either the site's design and content was now just so outdated it wasn't doing justice to the name of this fast growing telco, or this could be a security issue,some nasty hacking business. We've sent an email of inquiry. If the first reason is the case (and we hope it is) it wouldn't have hurt to put some useful info there in addition to the wrongly worded "Telecel Zimbabwe Website is currently under construction". Maybe a logo for identity purposes and additional text like "You can reach us on the following telephone numbers... and we're at this physical address." And maybe some kind of time estimate of how long things will stay like this.
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Econet To Introduce A Pay Phone “Call-Me-Back” Service
Posted inConnectivity

Econet To Introduce A Pay Phone “Call-Me-Back” Service

Econet Wireless is currently carrying out the final tests of a payphone 'call me back' service to be rolled out by end of this month. According to Econet’s Corporate Communications Manager, Ranga Mberi, the service is targeted at low income and rural subscribers who may not afford making calls on the network. The announcement was made in a story published on the Econet investor relations website today. "As most people in Zimbabwe are on the Econet network, the new service will allow most people who live in rural areas, or are unable to own their own cell phone, to send messages to relatives, to call them back, for free. It is also expected to be very popular with students, and other young people, who need to contact parents urgently, but may not have money," explained Mberi.
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Africom
Posted inBroadband

Africom To Launch CDMA2000 Mobile Network

Word has it that Africom is in the advanced stages of implementing a CDMA 2000 mobile network. The new mobile network will ride on its already established metro fibre networks in Harare and Bulawayo. According to our source, Africom is taking advantage of the anything-goes class A operator license they hold to spread into the mobile telephony business, a territory dominated by the ever expanding Econet. Though basically an Internet access provision license, the class A license doesn’t have anything in black and white stopping a licensee from building a mobile voice network. POTRAZ, the telecoms regulatory authority has since suspended the issue of these licenses.
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Google Code Labs
Posted inConnectivity

Google Africa Announces The G-Nigeria Event

Google Africa yesterday announced the G-Nigeria Day 2010 event on their Google Africa blog. The event is to be held at the University of Lagos from 18 to 20 February. The main objective of the G-Africa events is to help African developers and entrepreneurs build localised applications and implement business ideas using Google technologies. The event is facilitated by Google engineers who take attendees through sessions on the latest Google tools and hands-on codelabs.
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Econet Wireless
Posted inBroadband

Econet to Commission Fibre-Optic System By March

conet CEO Douglas Mboweni, said today Econet will commission its fibre-optic cable system in the major cities by March this year. 'Major cities' here probably refers to Harare and maybe Bulawayo. He made the revelation in an update of the network upgrade work that has been going on since the start of 2009. He confirmed that the upgrade work is nearing completion and a bundle of services should start rolling out in the next few weeks. Explaining why it took more than a year to complete the work he said: The process of raising money, ordering equipment, and bringing in contractors to build and install equipment takes time. In our case, we were not only expanding capacity but also replacing obsolete equipment that had not been replaced in 10 years. It was like starting from scratch.
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Zimbabwe Fixed Line Telephone
Posted inBroadband

Chamisa For Re-issuing TeleAccess With A Fixed Line License

Zimbabwe Minister of ICT, Nelson Chamisa would like to see the pressure on TelOne to meet fixed line subscriptions demands eased. How? By re-issuing TeleAccess (remember the guys that sat on a license for 2 years until it was taken back) with an operator's license. According to the Herald, Chamisa will be meeting Attorney General Johannes Tomana to discuss giving TeleAccess another chance. Similar meetings were talked about last year but it’s not clear what became of them. Chamisa’s reason remains; that “the Government would not tolerate monopoly, more so by an operator facing serious financial and infrastructure limitations to meet service demand” and that two operators will result in better service delivery.
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MTN NetOne Deal
Posted inConnectivity

“MTN set to acquire…” Rumours All Over Again. We Hope It’s A Solid Deal This Time.

The rumours about MTN's interest in acquiring a stake in one of Zimbabwe's mobile operators have resurfaced, only this time it's the government owned NetOne up for grabs. So yes, we're gleefully wagging our tails yet again, hoping this is not just another Telecel story. MTN was last year reported to be courting Telecel in a deal to acquire a controlling stake in the second largest (by number of subscribers) mobile operator. There was a lot of hype around the deal, with subscribers vowing to switch from whatever network they were on to the new Telecel. But the excitement had to die down. What with the long wait? The then 'imminent' deal never was.
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Nhava Netbook
Posted inConnectivity Miscellaneous

Year 2009 In Review

2009 came with a shift in ICT policy direction by the government. Customs duty on ICT equipment for example was suspended and currently ICT hardware suppliers only need to pay 15% VAT on imported equipment. Most positive change has generally been attributed to the energetic Minister of ICT, Nelson Chamisa.
2009 Global ICT Facts
Posted inBroadband

2009 Global ICT Facts

This month, the International Telecommunications Union released the “World in 2009, ICT Facts and Figures” report available in pdf here. Below is a summary some of the most interesting facts.
G-Tide Launches Regional Office In Harare
Posted inConnectivity

G-Tide Launches Regional Office In Harare

G-Tide, the makers of the locally popular G-Tide mobile phone launched their regional office in Harare on Wednesday at a ceremony held at the Crowne Plaza. The mobile phone appeared on the market about a year ago and has arguably taken up a significant slice of the mobile phone market in Zimbabwe.
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New Facebook Privacy Settings Seek To Do Away With Privacy
Posted inConnectivity

New Facebook Privacy Settings Seek To Do Away With Privacy

On visiting facebook last night, I was met with a prompt to update my privacy settings. Basically, the new privacy settings default your profile views to everyone. Including the boss whose friend request you haven’t responded to in over a year now. And pervy male stalkers crawling the net like search engines. Prospective employers too; they’re in the habit of Googling interviewees these days. The only information Facebook is suggesting you keep to your circle of friends is your email address, phone number and physical address.
What Zimbabweans Searched For On Google in 2009
Posted inConnectivity

What Zimbabweans Searched For On Google in 2009

According to Google Insights for Search, Zimbabweans just love facebook. We love it so much it’s in the first four spots in 2009’s top ten rising searches. At number 1 as “login facebook” then 2 as “facebook.com”, 3 as “www.facebook.com” and 4 as just “facebook”!
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Replace Adobe Reader With This Lightweight PDF reader
Posted inConnectivity

Replace Adobe Reader With This Lightweight PDF reader

Whenever my Firefox freezes, I immediately check if Adobe Reader’s trying to open a PDF from inside the browser. More often than not this is the reason and killing the tab (which is not always a click-and-close process) makes the fox happy again. Adobe Reader is THAT bloated, well for me at least.
Net*One Goes Green With Solar Powered Base Stations
Posted inConnectivity

Net*One Goes Green With Solar Powered Base Stations

It's quite interesting to read news that Zimbabwe’s second largest mobile operator (by number of subscribers) is now using solar energy to power its base stations. Net*One boasts the widest network coverge in Zimbabwe and keeping its large inventory of base stations powered has probably been a challenge, hence the green solution.
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